Yesterday marks not only the best day in television history, but also the best Sunday of this young law student’s life. Not only was April 1, 2012 the day of Wrestlemania XXVIII, the second season premier of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and a day where the Celtics beat the Miami Heat by almost…
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So here we go – my one post per year that gets mildly political. I apologize in advance… Occupy Boston, unfortunately, has become an unavoidable part of my life these past couple of months – only because I work next to Boston’s Federal Reserve building, which lies directly across the…
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My senior year of college, a professor opened my eyes to the power of a well-run simulations for social studies. He created these incredibly fun, yet realistic recreations of Renaissance Italy and Feudal Europe that made class fly by, left me wanting more, and beat the heck out of watching slide shows…
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The other day while updating an old lesson on globalization, I started with reviewing the basic outline. It was nothing out of the ordinary: Frontload vocabularyPresent the material In class activity to “practice” the material. In this case, they would explore the school for the origin of various itemsCreate a map showing…
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I read this article recently from the Washington Post about the state of Social Studies education in America. It just confirms what many of us know: our discipline is in danger. Take Oregon, where I taught for the last seven years. In Oregon there is no mandatory state test for Social Studies.…
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If you are assigned to write an essay on this play, you can always find a reliable helper like a professional write my paper service. Or, to get some ideas and information to write it yourself, read on and we will tell you everything you need to know! Richard the…
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Two weeks done. Kids are settling in, Open House is over, and the real teaching is starting. It’s given me cause to reflect on what I love so much about this job. Here are the top five reasons why I love teaching Social Studies. 1. I help kids make sense…
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Pirates are fun. Swashbuckling, rum swilling, treasure burying pirates never failed to have a good time. Here’s three things you probably didn’t know about pirates. 1. ) You really don’t want to let the cat out the bag. We use the phrase today when someone spills a secret by accident.…
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What is more hallowed to the Social Studies classroom than maps? Our walls are covered in them, and you can often find our students making them. For good reason. When used correctly, a map project is a powerful formative assessment that helps students understand spatial relationships, the world at large, relative…
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Happy New Year! I’ve hope you enjoyed your well deserved Christmas Break. Transitioning from the United States to Panama has left me very little time to write, but I’m resolved to get back in the swing of things. A change of scenery after 7 years in the same school has been…
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Done properly, a good bell warmer focuses students’ attention, stimulates their imagination, and gives you momentum as you move into you lesson. It can make the difference between a good and great lesson. Early on in my career, I viewed a bell warmer as an optional activity, but now I…
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As social studies teachers we are tasked with teaching a daunting scope of material. Planet Earth hosts more than 7 billion people at the moment, and no two of them are alike. It falls on us to explain just who these people are, and what they are doing here. Indeed, teaching…
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The Inca are famous for great stonework, Machu Picchu, and getting conquered by the Spanish. But here’s somethings you might not have known. 1.) There was no Inca Empire or Inca People. What we call the Inca Empire didn’t exist at all to the people that lived there. Inca was a title reserved…
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